Identifying Ashkenazi Jewish BRCA1/2 founder variants in individuals who do not self-report Jewish ancestry.

Current guidelines recommend BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic testing for individuals with a personal or family history of certain cancers. Three BRCA1/2 founder variants - 185delAG (c.68_69delAG), 5382insC (c.

Validity of the cold pressor test and pain sensitivity questionnaire via online self-administration.

To determine the feasibility of complex home-based phenotyping, 1,876 research participants from the customer base of 23andMe completed an online version of a Pain Sensitivity Questionnaire (PSQ) as well as a cold pressor test (CPT) which is used in clinical assessments of pain. Overall our online version of the PSQ performed similarly to the original pen-and-paper version. Construct validity of the PSQ total was demonstrated by internal consistency and consistent discrimination between more and less painful items.

Adult stature, body proportions and age at menarche in the United States National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) III.

Background: Previous studies have found that age at menarche is associated with stature, primarily via leg length. However, the effects appear to vary by population and/or time period. Improving socioeconomic conditions might amplify the association.

Age and size at maturity in women: a norm of reaction?

Objectives: We present the first review and meta-analysis of the association between adult stature and age at menarche over a broad range of human societies. We then outline possible biological explanations for observed empirical associations.

Methods: We analyzed the association between adult stature and age at menarche in 141 samples from published reports, including 35 samples for which the within-sample association was also reported.

Sex differences in the fingers of 3 to 5month old infants do not predict concurrent salivary testosterone levels.

Testosterone was assayed in the saliva of 32 female and 42 male 3-5 month old infants, and the lengths of their finger segments between flexion creases were measured. While expected sex differences were identified in the finger measures, these sex differences were not correlated with salivary testosterone in either sex.

Female reproductive strategies in orangutans, evidence for female choice and counterstrategies to infanticide in a species with frequent sexual coercion.

Intersexual conflicts over mating can engender antagonistic coevolution of strategies, such as coercion by males and selective resistance by females. Orangutans are exceptional among mammals for their high levels of forced copulation. This has typically been viewed as an alternative mating tactic used by the competitively disadvantaged unflanged male morph, with little understanding of how female strategies may have shaped and responded to this behaviour.

Bonobos have a more human-like second-to-fourth finger length ratio (2D:4D) than chimpanzees: a hypothesized indication of lower prenatal androgens.

The ratio of the second-to-fourth finger lengths (2D:4D) has been proposed as an indicator of prenatal sex differentiation. However, 2D:4D has not been studied in the closest living human relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus). We report the results from 79 chimpanzees and 39 bonobos of both sexes, including infants, juveniles, and adults.

Weight change and ovarian steroid profiles in young women.

Objective: To investigate possible short-term effects of voluntary weight loss on ovarian steroid profiles in young women, in light of better established long-term effects in older women.

Design: We tested for an association of voluntary weight change over the course of a menstrual cycle with salivary E(2) and P profiles in the same menstrual cycle.

Setting: Students were recruited in a college residence hall, and they provided daily saliva samples to a researcher living nearby.

Prostate cancer risk and ESR1 TA, ESR2 CA repeat polymorphisms.

Background: Experimental evidence has suggested that estrogen receptor alpha (coded by the gene ESR1) might increase prostate cancer risk, whereas estrogen receptor beta (coded by the gene ESR2) might reduce prostate cancer risk.

Methods: We investigated the relationship with prostate cancer risk of both a TA repeat polymorphism in the ESR1 5' region, ESR1 (TA)(n), and with a CA repeat polymorphism in intron 5 of ESR2, ESR2 (CA)(n), in a case-control study (545 cases and 674 controls) nested in the Physicians' Health Study.

Results: Prostate cancer risk was highest for carriers of ESR1 (TA)(24) and ESR1 (TA)(25).

Index-to-ring finger length ratio (2D:4D) predicts levels of salivary estradiol, but not progesterone, over the menstrual cycle.

We tested the association between the index-to-ring finger length ratio (2D:4D) and ovarian steroid hormone concentrations measured over the course of a menstrual cycle in the saliva of 38 young women. Estradiol levels were positively associated with right-hand, but not left-hand, 2D:4D, and also with the difference between right- and left-hand 2D:4D. None of these measures predicted progesterone level.

Overconfidence in wargames: experimental evidence on expectations, aggression, gender and testosterone.

Overconfidence has long been noted by historians and political scientists as a major cause of war. However, the origins of such overconfidence, and sources of variation, remain poorly understood. Mounting empirical studies now show that mentally healthy people tend to exhibit psychological biases that encourage optimism, collectively known as 'positive illusions'.

The use of digit ratios as markers for perinatal androgen action.

Since the ratio of the second-to-fourth finger length was first proposed as a marker for prenatal androgen action in 1998, over 100 studies have been published that have either further tested the association between the digit ratio and prenatal androgens, or employed digit ratios as a marker to investigate the association between prenatal androgens and a variety of outcomes, including behavior, fertility, and disease risks. Despite the clear demand for an adult marker of prenatal androgen action and increased use of digit ratios as such a marker, its validity remains controversial. This review (1) evaluates current evidence for the relationship between digit ratios and prenatal androgens (using experimentation with animal models, amniotic testosterone, and congenital adrenal hyperplasia case-control studies), (2) describes opportunities for future validation tests, and (3) compares the potential advantages and disadvantages of digit ratio measures with more established methods for studying the effects of prenatal androgens.

Sex dimorphism in digital formulae of children.

This paper presents results of a study designed to: 1) test for a sex difference in the relative lengths of the finger bones, including the second-to-fourth digit ratio (2D:4D), using left-hand radiographs taken in young children, 2) test whether sex differences can be explained by sex differences in fetal growth, and 3) test the serial stability of sex differences in relative digit lengths, including 2D:4D. Results are presented from 1,060 subjects of the California Child Health and Development Studies. One serial replication at about 9 years old is available from 271 subjects.

The development of sex differences in digital formula from infancy in the Fels Longitudinal Study.

Relative finger lengths, especially the second-to-fourth finger length ratio, have been proposed as useful markers for prenatal testosterone action. This claim partly depends on an association of relative finger lengths in adults with related sex differences in children and infants. This paper reports the results of a study using serial radiographs to test for both sex differences in the fingers of infants and children and for a relationship between sex differences in the children and infant finger and adult finger length ratios.

Human male pair bonding and testosterone.

Previous research in North America has supported the view that male involvement in committed, romantic relationships is associated with lower testosterone (T) levels. Here, we test the prediction that undergraduate men involved in committed, romantic relationships (paired) will have lower T levels than men not involved in such relationships (unpaired). Further, we also test whether these differences are more apparent in samples collected later, rather than earlier, in the day.

Effects of developmental and adult androgens on male abdominal adiposity.

We present results from 42 gay men who completed a survey including self-measurement of waist circumference, height, and weight, in addition to providing saliva samples for the assay of testosterone, and a photocopy of the right hand for the measure of second-to-fourth digit length ratio (2D:4D), proposed as a means of approximating androgenic effects during development. The analyses were conducted as a test of the recent hypothesis, proposed by Abbott et al. ([2002] J Endocrinol 174:1-5), that high prenatal androgen exposure causes greater deposition of fat on the abdomen relative to other depots.